


I'll keep the king (the king will keep me)

by TheJaskiestOfThemAll



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Blood, Dad Jaskier, Forgiveness, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Hurt, Hurt Ciri, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Injury, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Little bit of comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Song - Freeform, be careful if you are sensitive to those things, ciri whump, dad geralt, magic lute, or are they?, some self harm, some thoughts of suicide, take care of yourself friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJaskiestOfThemAll/pseuds/TheJaskiestOfThemAll
Summary: “So I’m a king?” Jaskier asked, smiling fondly.“You’re the king of our house at the top of this rock”“And are you my fearless knight?”She struck a knightly pose, “I will keep my king safe!”
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 36
Kudos: 88
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #004





	1. Darkness and Howling

**Author's Note:**

> How do you know if a shadow is just a shadow or a monster waiting to strike?

“Keep him safe will you?”

“I will!” answered Ciri tightening her hug on Geralt’s midriff. She wiped her face on his shirt, “I’ll miss you.”

Geralt kissed the crown of her head “So will I.”

She let go of him- she didn’t want to- but she did. She had to be strong. She was going to become a Witcher. And Witchers didn’t cry when their father left home for missions.

“Would it not be the other way around?” smiled Jaskier.

Geralt gave him a look, “No.”

Clutching his heart Jaskier exclaimed, “Oh! how you wound me, dear heart!”

Geralt rolled his eyes, “You’ll survive”

“Not without a kiss I won’t.”

Ciri turned away before she could see them kiss. Gross! She didn’t want to see them mash faces. She didn’t understand how someone could like kissing. _Especially_ kissing boys. All boys (except her father, Jaskier, Uncle Lambert, uncle Eskel and Grampa) were gross. They put their fingers up their noses, they didn’t bath (admittedly her dad should take bath more often on the road), and they always used to try to kiss her hand at court. Urk. Girls were so much better.

“Ciri”

She turned around to look at Geralt. He was handing her a dagger. Her first real dagger! She would have liked a sword better but a dagger was still so awesome!

“Be careful with it”

“I promise!” she gushed, taking the dagger out of its sheath and looking it over. It was so pretty, “thank you!”

He smiled at her. Geralt had a nice smile. It was small and it looked like he didn’t know how to do them but it was nice. It made her feel safe.

Ciri sheathed back the dagger, “Do you know when you’ll come back?” she asked.

He frowned “Not for at least a month.”

Ciri nodded “Before Lambert, Eskel and Grampa but do you-”

“We should let Geralt leave if we want him to come back,” Jaskier said, clearly teasing.

She tried to frown but failed. She couldn’t stop the smile from forming on her face. Jaskier was impossible to take seriously. She’d never seen him even frown at something, except maybe books.

“How about we race to the top of the rampart and try to spot him?”

Geralt mounted up Roach “Use the training path Ciri”

She started running “ Let’s go!”

“Cheater!”

She could hear him running behind her. She passed the broken gates into the courtyard. He was hot on her heels. He had longer legs but she knew the path like the back of her hand. She swerved right climbing up the fallen stones. She could see him take the stairs two by two in the corner of her eye.

Then she jumped on the posts, leaped and grabbed onto the oiled rope. The oil stuck to her hands. Jaskier always forced her to wash her hands after, even if she had wiped them on her trousers. At the top, she took the plank, careful not to look down at the spikes below. She ran up the last flight of stairs.

“I won! I won!” Ciri exclaimed jumping around excitedly.

“You,” Jaskier coughed grabbing the ramp, “sure did.” He took a few quick breaths, “How do you even.” He took another slower beath, “Have any energy left after that?”

She grinned at him and hummed. Ciri turned around and grabbed the wooden handrail, squinting to try and find Geralt (mostly looking for a black and white spot on a brown spot). It was a bit hard to do with the darkness coming in.

“Well,” Jaskier put a hand on her back, “We’ll have better luck next time.”

She turned her head to look at him and pouted “But I wanted to find him.”

He smiled “We’ll have many more occasions to come back up here and find him. Now, want to head to the library? And wash those hands of yours”

Ciri made a displeased face. She had almost gotten away with not washing her hands, “Sure.”

  
*

  
The snip of her scissors was the only sound audible in the library. Jaskier was concentrating on a boring book about...something. Maybe writing? Or singing? Or lutes? It was probably boring anyway. Most of the books in this place were. The only books that were mildly interesting were the ones Jaskier wrote about the history of the continent.

They were stories, not boring facts that she had to learn by heart. Who even needed to know about Kaedwen architecture. Kaedwens didn’t have architecture. They just pilled up logs, put hay on top and called it a day.

She didn’t need to learn about that. And that was why she was using that particular book for a much more important reason.

She cut up her last piece and glued everything together. She got up, walked up to Jaskier and waved it in front of his face.

“I made you this!”

He startled, “Oh coc-katrice!”

Ciri grinned. Jaskier was so easily startled when he was deep in concentration. It was hilarious. She never could get Geralt to react like that. He’d just look at her and sigh. One day she’d get him!

“What’s that my dear?”

“A crown!” She put it on his head. It fit perfectly. She had done a good job. You couldn’t even see the drawings of Kaedwen houses. The text was the only visible thing.

“So I’m a king?” Jaskier asked, smiling fondly.

“You’re the king of our house at the top of this rock”

“And are you my fearless knight?”

She struck a knightly pose, “I will keep my king safe!”

He laughed and picked her up. “My brave knight!”

She put her head on his shoulder, put her hands around his neck and yawned.

He rubbed her back with the hand not holding her, “I think it’s time for my brave knight to go to sleep.”  
They ambled down the corridor. The torches cast deep shadows in their wake. She had never liked this part of the keep. There was a corridor that went...somewhere. Geralt had forbidden them from going but every time they went or came from the library they had to pass in front of it. Like right now

Jaskier just ignored it. He passed straight passed it without pause. But she looked at it. She looked deep in the darkness. She could see the shadows and figures hiding in them. Moving to a silent rhythm. She could hear their hissing and their cackling, singing a song of pain and death. She could see the hands reaching out for her, asking for a dance. One from which she wouldn’t come back. She didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to go. Ciri tightened her hold on Jaskier and let the corridor disappear behind the bend.

They got to her room and Jaskier tucked her in- she didn’t need it but she knew he liked it- and brushed her hair out her face.

“Goodnight cub.”

“Goodnight dad. Can I have a song?” She enquired, burrowing into her furs.

He kissed her forehead, “Anything for you,” He sang her a beautiful song.

She fell asleep.

*

  
A scream shattered the silence.

She jumped. It was pitch dark.

There was another scream. It sounded pained.

Dad.

She hurried out of bed into the corridor.

She ran. The shadows were following her. She had to get to Jaskier before them. They grabbed at her clothes and her hair. They whispered into her ears. Weak. Weak. Weak.

The hallway was getting longer. It was stretching and moving. No matter how much she ran she couldn’t get to Jaskier’s room. It was always just out of reach.

The hands were everywhere.

She whispered, “Stop, stop!”  
They stopped. She didn’t think about why they would listen to her, she needed to get to her dad.

Finally, she reached Jaskier’s room and burst in

“Dad!”

He leaped from the bed, dagger in hand. Completely awake even though he was asleep not even seconds before.

“Ciri, what’s happening?” he exclaimed, running to her.

“You were screaming!” she cried. Tears streaming down her face.

“I-what?,” He blinked, “You must have had a bad dream” He hugged her tighly

“I heard you, I swear.” She sobbed burying his head into his shoulder.

He tightened his hug, “I believe you.” He picked her up and placed her on the bed, “How about you sleep here tonight?”

She nodded and shuddered. She didn’t want to be alone. Not after what happened. She lay down on the bed and Jaskier lay down behind her. He pressed her against his chest. He smelled like old paper and ink but mostly he smelled like home.

*

The sky was so blue.

There was not a single cloud in the sky and the sun was shining on them. This particular balcony was a favourite of theirs. You had a view of the whole mountain. It was spectacular.

Nothing could hurt them here. It was their safe place. She came here when she got overwhelmed, to get a moment to breathe and be. Jaskier would accompany her sometimes and just play her favourite songs. No words were needed in those moments.

“Strangely, the thing that I miss most about living near the sea is the birds.” Jaskier began, fiddling with his lute, “I used to go up the cliffs and listen to their cries all day long if I could.” He smiled, “They sounded horrible.” He paused, “But they were so free and happy, that they didn’t care about how horrible they sounded they just sang. It was everything I ever wanted.”

She looked at him. He was looking at the sky. His cheeks were red and his green doublet was open. He was barefoot. His hair was windswept. He had the paper crown on his head. He had put it on this morning and hadn’t taken it off. He had said that it was the best fashion accessory that he had ever had and that he would gladly wear it at court. Ciri believed him. He looked at home.

He continued, “I’d like to take you there someday.”

Ciri closed her eyes, “I’d like that too.”

*

_The seabirds were crying._

_The storm was raging. The wind was howling_

_She ran around the boat. Her feet echoing on the stones that made up the boat. She grabbed the ropes. Pulled the sails. The boat was falling apart. The stones were falling into the sea._

_She ran up up up at the bow. She couldn’t do anything. The boat was going to sink into the sea of shadows. The waves of fingers grabbed the boat and it shook._

_She looked down. The shadows morphed. They became bodies desperately trying to get on board. Her grandmother. Eist. Vesemir. Eskel. Lambert. Yennefer. Geralt. Jaskier!_

_“Take my hand!” She screamed._

_She reached out and grabbed his hand. She pulled but he pulled too. She went overboard._

_She fell into the bodies. They shredded her flesh and ripped out the bark of her bones._

_The sea birds wept._

*

Ciri’s eyes snapped open and she gasped for air. Heart pounding she blinked up at the darkness. A dream. It was just a dream. But if it was a dream why did she feel like something horrible was going to happen.

She needed to check on Jaskier.

She hastily got out of bed and grabbed her dagger. Ciri left her room and entered the hallway.

The shadows were waiting. She could see them out of the corner of her eyes. They never stayed in one place long enough to get a good picture. They were taunting her. Weak.

She heard music. Jaskier.

She ran toward Jaskier. Her breathing started to become shallow. Her muscles hurt and the shadows sang a song of fear.

They started to fill up her visions. Her sight would drown in the darkness. She was scared. But she needed to be strong. She promised she would take care of Jaskier. She couldn’t fail, she couldn’t let another person she loved get hurt.

The music was getting louder. Jaskier was on the balcony. She took the stairs. She couldn’t see anything anymore. the shadows have taken her sight completely. She fell and slammed her knee on the stone. It hurt. She got up. She needed to get to Jaskier.

Ciri stood up and used the wall to guide her up. It was cold and slimy but she needed it to advance.

She tripped on what she was pretty sure was the last stair. Hands gripped her and tried to pull her up, left, right, down. She fought them off with everything she had but they were too many and they were so strong.

She could scream but she would hurt Jaskier. She took out her dagger and started swinging and stabbing. She hit something, she didn’t stop.

Her vision cleared.

Pained blue eyes looked at her.

Blood dribbled out from his lips, “ ….Ciri.”

Jaskier fell to the ground. She dropped the dagger. It sounded like the shackles of the guilt she would carry for the rest of her life. He gasped for air.

“..No, no, no, no, no, please!” She begged and fell to her knees.

She tried to put pressure on the wound but they were too deep. He was bleeding out.

The moon illuminated the balcony, drowning the scene in light. His face was pale and he was looking at her with his too blue eyes. She didn’t want to see the disgust and the hate so she looked away but she missed the love and the forgiveness in his gaze.

His beautiful green doublet was stained with his blood. Ciri looked at her hands pressing on the wounds. They were shaking and stained with her sin. Her nails were the colours of rust. He had bled so much she thought only dust could be left in his veins. Tears started falling down her cheeks and shone in the moonlight before crashing like waves on Jaskier.

He brought up his hand, caressed her face and promised a lie, “It’s going to be alright.” He smiled, teeth stained with blood.

His hand fell, leaving a trace of blood, red like the fires of hell. She wept.

A single paper crown lay on the ground.


	2. Second wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be only 2 chapters but...yeah...sorry?

“...Dad?”

There was no answer.

Her hands were shaking, the sign of her unforgivable trespass glinted red under the moon’s light with every shudder. She could see tears of blood slowly dripping down her hands to her arms in tiny rivulets. That used to be in Jaskier, it used to be what kept him alive and she had stolen it. 

She had stolen his life.

She slowly brought up her hands to her hair and grabbed her hair in tight bundles tainting her blond locks with the lifeblood of one she held so dear.

Her whole body was uncontrollably quaking. She couldn’t move anymore, she couldn’t breathe. 

She couldn’t breathe.

He wasn’t breathing. 

She’d killed him. 

She yanked at her hair again and again and again. Maybe the pain outside would stop her from feeling the agony of her soul ripping itself into shreds. 

She could feel the anguish, the sorrow, the anger spew from the lacerations covering her soul. It emerged from the inside of her lungs as a viscous ooze and proliferated until it filled out the whole of her lungs and licked her trachea.

Ciri clamped her mouth shut- it couldn’t be let out- but it erupted in her larynx and cleaved open her mouth enabling everything to leave her body in a destructive wail.

Kaer Morhen shook with her grief.

She came back to the sight of Jaskier’s broken limbs sprawled out near the wall of the keep- he must have collided into it- and she crawled on her knees as fast as she could to get to him.

She took his hands and squeezed, he wasn’t really gone, this was a bad dream, this was a nightmare.

She held his cold hand for a long time. The wind picked up and blasted it’s freezing breath on her but she held on, the moon disappeared from the sky to leave place for the sun but still, she held on. 

Hunger started gnawing at her insides, she needed to eat. But she couldn’t leave, she couldn’t leave him alone. What would happen to him if he was left alone? She needed to bring him down with her.

She got up on shaky legs.

Ciri grabbed Jaskier (not Jaskier’s body-Jaskier) by the underarms and pulled. She barely took a step backward before she collapsed under his weight. His torso was crushing her legs and his head lolled back. She could feel his lifeless eyes boring into her soul. The look of the dead was much more judgemental than the look of the living. 

She harshly removed her legs from under Jaskier. If she couldn’t carry him for more than a minute how would she ever get him down the staircase? She had to leave him here.

“I won’t leave you here forever, I promise. I’ll come back for you.

She pushed herself off the cold stone floor and rose with the morning light.

Ciri went down the stairs not seeing the paper crown being blown by the wind and escaping to the sky.

*

At first, she had tried to go on as normal. 

She woke up at dawn. She changed into training clothes. She went to the kitchen to fix herself some breakfast-always putting two settings- that she did not eat. She went to the training grounds, took a sword and stared at the stone wall until the sun reached its zenith. Then, she went back to the kitchen and its second setting and force-fed herself whatever was available. She got up, walked through the horribly silent keep, went to the library-passed in front of the hallway, where did the shadows go?- and flooded the books with her tears. Rinse and repeat.

Being alone was horrible. 

After a while, the routine didn’t make sense anymore, nothing did. Not the training or the reading...sometimes even the living stopped being reasonable.

She still had to live, so she made a new routine.

Eat, sleep, repeat.

Unfortunately, food would not pass her throat no matter how much she tried and if it did pass she ended up vomiting everything up. Everything tasted like ash in her mouth. The kind of ash you would find on a battlefield, the one that tasted of rage and flames and defeat. The kind she had tasted in Cintra. 

Sleep would not come, she had tried sleeping in Jaskier’s bed. Tried to get closer to him, closer to his scent and his presence yet it had faded in the first few days and she was left with only the odour of despair and of crusted blood. 

She had tried reading his books and his notes. She would spend hours caressing his writing on the pages; he had horrible writing for a noble and university alumni. She figured he did it on purpose, perfect way to seem imperfect in the eyes of the ‘elite’. 

She found a new song in one of his old books, one she’d never heard. It seemed unfinished and was scratched and written over like he had passed hours upon hours on the lyrics. _Little bird’s first song_ -little bird- the silly little nickname he’d given to her in the private time they shared upon that faithful balcony. 

‘Why,’ she’d asked him, ‘why do you call me that?’

He’d kissed her forehead tenderly and passed a hand through her hair, ‘because you deserve to fly little bird.’

He’d never explained what he meant by that. He would never have that chance now. 

She would always exhaust herself crying after reading the song, it was the only way she could fall asleep. 

_Fly little bird fly_

_Fly little bird fly_

_Sing your song way up high_

_Sing it free, sing it wild_

It was fitful and the dreams were violent. A knife glinting in the moonlight, blood pouring from an invisible wound and flooding the world, waves crashing upon bones in the shadow of a great stone boat. Shadows watching, getting closer and closer and-

She woke up in cold sweat, with the dreadful feeling of being observed.

She only had to look in the unlit corners of the room to see the culprits.

The shadows were still there, writhing like flesh-eating worms. They had seemed to stop right after- after Jaskier. But their second wind had finally come. 

They seemed to be stronger, they still followed her in the dark crevices of the keep. They followed everywhere, she had no respite from their imaginary eyes (black and blue and brown and green and full of endless hate). They still whispered to her, words of pain, songs of destructions- so different from the one Jaskier had written for her- and cruel laughs. 

‘It’s your fault.’

‘You’re failing, over and over and over again now.’

‘Does it hurt? It should.’

They had started to come closer and closer, seemingly lapping at her fears trying to drink out of her guilt as would a parched trainee after a long day being run to the ground by a heartless master. They caressed her hair tenderly and pulled at her clothes when she wasn’t looking like a child trying to get her attention. 

They made the wind howl in the room as she lay in Jaskier’s bed. It was so strong that she thought she could feel his bones rattle in the dark of the balcony up, up above. It felt as if the wind could bring whispers of the dead and she thought she could hear him in the night.

‘You failed me.’

‘You killed me.’

She couldn’t handle it anymore. She needed to hide until Geralt came back, she had to survive the shadows in her mind and the ones outside of it.

Geralt. 

She hadn’t thought of him since the incident. 

He was going to hate her. She’d killed his most important person, the one he’d lived his life with for the last thirty years. The love of his life. Geralt would cast her aside, blame her for Jaskier’s death and he’d be right to do it, she deserved it. She deserved to rot in the dungeons of Kaer Morhen for her crimes, to never see the light of day again. She deserved to be punished for her crimes but for that, she needed to survive.

Ciri grabbed as many furs as she could, as many candles as was humanly possible, and Jaskier’s lute and ran to the most easily defensible room in the keep.

The kitchen.

With only one door, one tiny window and many hearths (and all the food), the kitchen was the best place to hole up for an unknown amount of time and protect herself from the shadows. 

She put the candles in all the corners she could find and lit them all. No shadows would find their way in. She made her bed of furs silent on the kitchen floor hoping they would not hear.

She stayed for a long time. She stayed long enough to have to change the ever-burning candles twice over. 

She stayed even when she could feel the shadows under the door, passing without any real noise but buzzing with uncontrollable undistinct emotions. So many emotions passed under that door, they were tangled strings that you tear apart in a desperate attempt to untangle them but you only make it worse.

She played the lute as much as she could, as loud as she could. Without melody or rhythm, to drown out her fears. To drown out the scratching at the door. 

They were always at the door.

The scratching made her feel the phantom pain of her skin peeling, of her insides tearing themself apart, of her eyeballs melting in their sockets and her joints breaking and creaking. 

In those moments she barely had the strength to play, but play she must.

Keep them out, she sang.

Keep them out, she prayed.

But she could not stop the cold as surely as she could not stop time. It took any chance it could to seep into the cracks of her little fortress of warmth. To advance slowly in the room and to- one by one- extinguish her candles.

At the first one gone, she threw the lute aside. Ciri rushed toward the matches, the first one failed to light up. She swore. The second lit up with her hope and she rushed toward the cold beacon of light.

She tried to light it up, however, the wind rose inside the room. The candles were snuffed out. The cold invaded the room and she could see her breath in the air. 

She could hear the scratching.

She could hear knuckles hitting the door.

Slowly.

Surely.

The door bellowed,

And _splintered_. 


	3. The light that keeps burning there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It could not end this way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go! It is done! thank you to everyone who read this and special thanks to Bro, Ezzi and Marisa I owe you all my life.

The shadows crept inside, slowly, slowly. Crawling from the doorway into the room, extending themselves becoming an impenetrable wall of despair. They were nothing else than darkness and suffering. They wanted her, they needed her, she could feel it.

They laughed and cackled when she froze, extinguished match stuck in her hand. They relished in her fear. 

She fell backward and desperately crawled away from the writhing mass of hatred. Her back hit the wall. 

No, no it couldn’t end this way. This wasn’t how she wanted her life to end. She had so many things left to. She hadn’t gone on a hunt, she hadn’t given Geralt a hug, she hadn’t told Lambert that she loved him. She hadn’t apologized to Jaskier.

She rose up, determination burning with the might of a thousand candles in her gaze. Ciri grabbed the fallen lute and a kitchen knife. She pointed the knife at the shadows and snarled,

“Welcome to my table, bring your fucking hunger.” 

She leaped at them swinging wildly and screaming out her anger and her grief. They took it all away, they would pay. She  _ would _ make them pay for what they did. They crashed violently into each other like waves on cliffs.

But the waves always defeat the cliff. They always end up falling deep in the ocean, falling in their depts never to see the sun again. So, Ciri fell. Deeply in the shadows. She was drowning in the pain in the betrayal that wasn’t her own. 

She could feel her veins being set aflame, she could feel her nerves melt from the fire inside of her. She could feel the liquid fire being poured down her throat. She could feel her nails being ripped off her fingers after hours of scratching. At eyes, at walls, at skin, at anything they could get their hands on. She could hear the begging of a thousand voices.

‘Please, please’

‘It hurts.’

‘I want my mommy.’

Tears starting running down her cheeks. This was the pain of thousands of beings, begging for mercy, begging for vengeance. They wanted what she had, they wanted what she was. They reached into her chest and tried to rip her ribcage open. They wanted to devour her, make her theirs.

No.

She wouldn’t let them.

She was the light, she was the sun and the wind, she was the cries of the birds in the sky, she was everything she wanted to be. She was  _ Ciri _ . 

She reached for the lute and strummed with all she was, all her love and her will. 

The lute answered her plight. It started to vibrate and etchings never seen before started to glow with pure white light. The strings strummed themselves, ancient voices started pouring out of the lute. 

She could see the owner of the voices in the shadows, singing with all their might and their loves. They were elves- spirits of elves- elegant and old. A young-looking one traced an etching right under the neck. An old woman with the markings of time on her face fondly caressed the one on the right side of the main body. They knew the lute; they remembered it from their lives. They were the old owners of the lute coming back to give her their strength. Give her their voices. 

So Ciri sang with them, she sang all the songs she could remember, she sang of love and life; of things that would scare the shadows.

The shadows around her screeched in horror and fear. They did not understand what they were feeling. The songs were trying to fill a part of them that was buried deep under years of suffering and they could not let it lest they lose their reason for existing, their pain.

They dissipated. 

Ciri breathed.

She could not, unfortunately, let her guard down, she knew they would be back soon. There was only one person that could defeat them completely. She had to go see the last owner of the lute.

She had to go back to Jaskier.

She nodded a thanks to the spirits of the lute as they faded and she dashed through the keep without looking back. She needed to reach Jaskier before the shadows caught her with her.

Ciri could hear them form in the kitchen, the scratching and the howling of the wind getting stronger. She could hear plates crashing like waves, knives stabbing the walls and pots and pans creating a thunderstorm of noise.

She keeps running until she gets to the stairs. Then she stopped and steeled herself, this was going to be the first time since the  _ incident _ that she went back. She had to be prepared for the worst, she had to be prepared for the smell of rotting human being. The cheap perfume of decay. She had to be prepared for the sight of Jaskier’s decomposing corpse with the maggots and the flies.

She flew forward toward the light at the end of the stairs.

Ciri got to the top and had to cover her eyes from the glare of the burning sun. Once her eyes adjusted to being in the sunlight she looked around looking for a decaying corpse.

She found none.

What she found was the perfectly preserved body of her father laying on his back with his arms perfectly arranged at his sides, no sight of blood on him, no sight of the knife or the wound. 

He looked asleep.

For a moment Ciri felt hope flutter in her chest, maybe it was all a dream, maybe he had been asleep the whole time, maybe he was only waiting for her to shake him awake and he would smile and laugh and kiss her cheek. 

The sky darkened and the wind howled around her- her hope crashed like a bird with broken wings- they were coming.

She stepped behind Jaskier’s body and waited.

The shadows wriggled on the balcony, they twisted and wrapped themselves until they were a small concentrated mass of darkness.

“ **H** _ ell _ **o** ,  **_Ci_ ** rill _ a _ ”, they said with hundreds of small, childlike voices.

“I don’t know who you are but…. Fuck you.”

It twisted in a sad way, “ ...fuck..us? Cirilla we saved you.”

She couldn’t believe what she had just heard, “Save me? Save me!?” she snarled, “You killed my Father! Yout tried to kill me! And my name is Ciri!”

“Oh, no...we saved you from him. He was just using you...they always do.” The mass expanded and came back to its compact shape, “He was going to hurt you, put you in a little dark room and give you something and kill you. We were protecting you, we wanted to keep you safe and make you see, make you understand. You need to destroy this place.”

“He was my Father, he loved me! And this is my HOME!” Ciri growled, “I’d rather die than help you.”

The mass wriggled on the floor and in the air, “Love? You know he didn’t, you’ve felt it, deep inside. You were a burden, he was only taking care of you for The Monsters. Don’t you remember the ways he looked at you? You were nothing to him, only another child, one of many, that have passed through his halls. Another one to put on the slab.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about but you are the real monsters here.”

The thing writhed and trashed, “Monsters?? The monsters are the yellow eyes! They punch and hurt and break! They give potions and they kill, kill, kill, kill, kill”

The sky darkened further, the wind howled in her ears. She could see thousands of tiny fingers grabbing the edge of the balcony. they started to shake. She could feel the violence of the disturbance in her bones. The stones of the balcony started to fall in the darkness below, she could hear birds scream in the sky. Ciri could not stop the balcony from being destroyed.

She could see the shadows forming a spear from themselves and lunging it toward her. She would die here.

She went to grab Jaskier’s hand, she would let him pull her in the deep dark sea with him this time.

She only managed to grab soft...fluff?

She looked into her hands and where Jaskier laid. There was only dandelion fluff.

They exploded in the air with a bright light and the spear of darkness recoiled in pain. 

Ciri could only stare as the fluffs left place to the one person she never thought she would see again, to Jaskier.

She gawked at his back. How-how was he hear?

He wore a white doublet and white trousers. His feet were bare and his hair was dishevelled in the way it usually was when he just got out of bed. He had a crown...a paper crown on his head.

“You won’t hurt my daughter anymore.”

He took one step forward. The thing shrank back. Jaskier took another step and another, and another until he was at arm’s length with the mass of shadows.

He kneeled in front of it.

“And I won’t let you hurt yourself anymore.” He extended his arm to touch the shadows, “I know who you are, I know how much you have suffered. You don’t need to hold onto the pain anymore. Let go of it, forgive them as I have forgiven you.” 

Jaskier hugged the wriggling mass of darkness. It convulsed in his arms, shrinking until there was only a little boy. One little boy with the hurt and pain of a thousand. He looked emancipated and his eyes were red with unshed tears. His clothes were full of blood and other bodily fluids. His nails were almost gone his fingers. The boy returned the hug and sobbed into Jaskier’s shoulder.

“We just wanted to be loved,” They cried harder, “They hurt us so much. They told us we were going to be strong, they lied! They gave us a potion and it hurt so much and we died! we had to stay in the room and watch all the others die too! we couldn’t leave!”

Jaskier caressed his hair, “Shhhh, you don’t have to go back there anymore.”

The boy looked up at Jaskier and wiped his eyes, “I… don’t have to go back, I can leave? Promise?”

Jaskier poked at his nose, “Promise, we can leave together.” He looked back at Ciri, “Give me just a moment to say goodbye.”

He untangled himself from the boy, got up and walked over to Ciri. He kneeled in front of her.

Ciri couldn’t hold back her tears, “Dad!”

She rushed to give him a hug but passed through him. 

He passed his hand through her hair, “Hello, my darling.”

“Please dad, don’t leave, don’t leave please, please, I’m sorry please stay with me.” 

“I cannot stay here with you, my dear. But know that I will be in the stories, I will be in the music, I will be in the songs and I will be,” he passed his hand over her heart, “Here, forever.” 

Her tears fell from her eyes like the newly formed rivers of spring. 

“You need to forgive yourself, my love. The guilt you carry need not be, I forgave you the moment the knife made contact. And do not worry, nothing would ever make me love you less. You could bring down empires, set the world aflame and my love would burn brighter than all the flames.”

Ciri could do nothing but try to stop the flow of her tears but still, they fell on the stone floor, unstoppable like the rain. 

Jaskier smiled, “We will see other again Ciri, I promise you, but please, please take your time and never doubt my love for you.” He hummed a melody, “In the time that you have, Fly little bird fly, sing your song, sing it wild.” 

He got up, went back to the boy and took his hand.

Ciri looked at the little boy and cried out through the tears, “Keep my dad safe!” 

He looked back at her and smiled, “I will!”

Jaskier laughed, “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

Ciri gazed at him, “No…”

Jaskier and the little boy smiled at her. They became light, they became birds taking flight into the great blue sky singing a familiar melody.

_ Fly little bird fly _

_ Fly little bird fly _

_ Sing your song way up high _

_ Sing it free, sing it wild. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me how many lines of TAD songs you were able to find while reading (there's a lot) I am curious

**Author's Note:**

> :)


End file.
